Favorite Historical Resources

[JerseyJohn]

Urko

Yes, agreed.

In the sixties I knew a member of one of the United States units, I believe it was called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, that fought for the Republicans. He was a college professor of mine who was hounded throughout the fifties by communist hunters in the United States.

In the fifties I knew an Italian American who, through no choice of his own, also wound up fighting in Spain with Mussolini's alledged volunteers. I've copied below an account I gave back in early December of that man's exploits (posting was in response to some insightful comments by Immer Etwas about reluctant soldiers, which I've included here):

Immer Etwas

"Or, more likely, having them sent off without any delicate inquiries as to their martial desires. "

In the late thirties a friend of my dad's, having worked hard for twenty years managed to set some money aside despite the Depression to visit his native Italy and family. Unfortunately he forgot he was still a citizen of the place.

Not long after getting off the gangplank in Napoli, he was informed that he'd never fulfilled his military obligation and was mediately drafted. After a smidgeon of training he was also told that he'd volunteered to represent his country in Spain.

His enthusiasm for all this can be easily imagined.

I heard the old boy telling about his adventures when I was a kid in the fifties. Skeptics will say he was embellishing, but I don't think so.

I wish I had a film of him explaining with his animated hands how, when the shooting started, a pair of corporals dragged him out to a big water cooled machine gun -- threatening to shoot him if he didn't stop screaming -- and chained him either to the gun or a spike in the groung, leaving him enough room to move around but making it impossible to run off.

He said that when the smoke cleared an officer came over and patted him on the back and said he'd fought heroically! Probably he was still chained to the damn thing.

He added in broken English, "What Hero -- the other sumuvabitches, they get me it wouldda been up against a wall and POP!"

Pretty fair motivation.

Eventually getting back to Naples, the Italian government was nice enough to thank him for volunteering and, ingrate that he was, he scraped together whatever he still had and boarded the next Brooklyn bound ship.

I'll bet there are a lot of similar war stories out there that never make it to the documentaries or into the history books.

[ May 08, 2003, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Urko]

It's a very funny history Jersey

[JerseyJohn]

Thanks, Urko, as I mentioned it's one of those stories that are impossible to tell doing justice to the way it was originally recounted. Like most oldtime Italians he told his stories with a lot of gestures and facial expressions that are impossible to put in words -- eyes bulging for dramatic emphasis when he asked --"What hero -!" with his hands upturned as though seeking an answer from above.

That's why I like documentaries like The World at War, where you can see and hear people, often ordinary soldiers or civilians, recalling events in their own words and with their own mannerisms.

[ May 09, 2003, 10:53 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Urko]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Thanks, Urko, as I mentioned it's one of those stories that are impossible to tell doing justice to the way it was originally recounted. Like most oldtime Italians he told his stories with a lot of gestures and facial expressions that are impossible to put in words -- eyes bulging for dramatic emphasis when he asked --"What hero -!" with his hands upturned as though seeking an answer from above.

That's why I like documentaries like The World at War, where you can see and hear people, often ordinary soldiers or civilians, recalling events in their own words and with their own mannerisms.

That makes me remember when I obtained 0'3 pointsin English with my theory: When you throw the water from one glass to another glass you lose a bit of water, explanation: I did an horrible translation in an exercise with mark and the teacher did'nt know what mark to put

[JerseyJohn]

. . . and the teacher did'nt know what mark to put.

English is like that, what one person considers great writing another thinks is gargage. Most of the best fiction writers break all the rules of correct grammar while the better non-fiction writers only break three quarters of them. To write in English with total correctness is to make the item unreadable. It's the difference between writing English and writing British!

[ May 09, 2003, 03:41 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Urko]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

. . . and the teacher did'nt know what mark to put.

English is like that, what one person considers great writing another thinks is gargage. Most of the best fiction writers break all the rules of correct grammar while the better non-fiction writers only break three quarters of them. To write in English with total correctness is to make the item unreadable. It's the difference between writing English and writing British!

Mmm, too much for me :confused: I think I prefer Spanish...

[santabear]

*yawning as he awakes from hibernation*

I'm glad to have started this thread...I have amassed some nice summer reading projects from everyone's suggestions. Here are a few thoughts on reading through (after being away on business for a week and a half...)

Decline and Fall of the Third Republic: I love it--a classic.

Churchill's history: A pleasure to read; but one has to have the BS detector on "high gain." There are many self-serving moments in the book that (I think) give a distorted picture of the "story" of WWII. But he is still my favorite character of the whole epic event.

Some other suggestions and a request:

1. For Churchill fans: The Last Lion (Vol 2) by William Manchester. This is a biography of Churchill from approx. 1930-1940--it ends as Churchill becomes prime minister. Manchester is certainly a "Churchillite" and the book shamelessly glorifies Churchill, but it is just a joy to read. It is so brilliantly written that I can feel the emotion of the pivotal moments during that eventful time. It's probably the best book on the between-the-wars time in Britain there is.

It's a shame that Manchester had a stroke and could not finish the third volume.

2. Judgement at Nuremberg by Robert Conot. This book covers the story of the Trial of Major War Ciminals after the war, but it has excellent analyses that compare the evidence presented by the prosecution at the trial with current historical knowledge (as of 1980 or so). These analyses are the best concise history of WWII that I know of. The book also has details of the judges' deliberations that are very interesting.

========================

Request: Has anyone read a GOOD "revisionist" biography about Churchill? These were popular in the late 80's: Churchill was not so great after all, he made many errors, etc. I've not been able to finish one since they wind up seeming trivial after a bit. But I would love to get the "other side" of the Churchill story.

[ May 12, 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: santabear ]

[santabear]

Jersey John: Thanks for your help. I was on my way out the door when the brain wave for this thread struck. Here, though, is what I was thinking of:

Quoting Konstantin from the "Great War Leaders Thread"

One thing about the purges that many do not know, is at the time they happened, it was felt that it was a good thing. The regular army truly believed they were cleaning house of enemies of the people. The purges would have gone on longer as the army kept denoucing it's officers as fast as it could. It was Beria/Stalin and several others that said "knock it off" and put an end to it.

Don't believe me? You don't have to but read these to books "Stalins Reluctant Soldiers" - Reese and "Stumbling Colossas" - Glantz. These two books are breaking new ground regarding the purges and reading them will change the way you view it. A lot of common misconceptions are falling by the wayside as the new Russian state has opened some of it's historical archives to western scholars.

[JerseyJohn]

santabear

Glad to have rendered assistance. Like all the good Threads this one had just the right touch of wandering and getting back in focus, a really enjoyable Topic.

[SeaWolf_48]

OdessaBear

I read a book in the 90's that said that Churchill was by-polar and a homosexual. It made me so mad that I tore the book up! Can't remember it's name, Thank God. The same thing happens to all great leaders, someone will say, "Linclon was an idiot", "Kenedy was a sexual pervert", "Churchill was a homo", "Clinton was a sexual pervert", I mean "a great moral man", whatever!

[JerseyJohn]

SeaWolf

Reminds me of a 70s movie (The Good-bye Girl?) where Richard Dryfuss plays a struggling New York stage actor landing a role in Richard III. He goes to the theater with soaring hopes for the first cast meeting. The director, whose mother is producing the play, gets up and opens with, "Okay, let's face it, both Shakespeare and Richard were flaming fags!" Some revisionist historians seem obsessed with that idea -- probably read that single work of Freud's, or more likely condensed notes on it -- and became fixated irrevocably on the idea.

Whereas, histoically, it's always been accepted that Richard the Lion Heart, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great ventured fairly deeply into those realms. But I doubt it would be a good idea to jump in a time machine and pose the bi-polar question to someone like Atilla the Hun, Vlad the Impaler or Ghengis Khan. No doubt, after the response, a true Freudian would interpret the impaling of the unfortunate time traveller in some sort of repressed sexual connotation.

"And sometimes a pencil only symbolizes a pencil, nothing more."

[ May 12, 2003, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[SeaWolf_48]

Jerey, that movie "Goodby Girl" was funny. One of my favorite movies "Lion of Winter" showed Richard as gay. Come-on, Richard the Fairy Hearted?, Manly men in a manly world!

Kate Hepburn's greatest line in the movie (one of her 4 oscar movies), was after telling Henry the whatever that she had slept with his father, O'Tool flee's the room screaming NOOOOO, she sets in the doorway at looks right at the camera and says, "Well, every family has it's problems".

I thought that Dryfuss was better in Jaws, he didn't want to play in that movie, but he was perfect for it!

The scene where Dryfuss, Shaw and whats his face are all comparing scares is so great, then Shaw says "Indianapolis" very powerful.

[JerseyJohn]

SeaWolf

Agreed absolutely all the way.

Lion in Winter was funny as hell and that Hepburn scene stole the show -- the whole sequence where Phillip, the King of France, reveals each dirty secret along with a hiding place one after the other is also great. Typical Kate Hepburn also produces some really painful moments when it comes back to the reality of a destroyed marriage and wasted lives.

That scene in Jaws is really great. I was managing a movie theater when it came out and I remember the way even the rowdiest audience used to pipe down to dead silence when "Inianapolis . . ." was said.

The only comparable scene for audience reaction came in Cabaret, the Bavarian forest scene, when the innocent looking boy is singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me , he's joined by a sweet looking blonde freuline, and the camera backs up expanding into a scene where they singers are all fanatical Hitler Youth with the innocent boy putting his cap on and raising his arm in the nazi salute.

A slow dolly shot pans the rest of the crowd and they are shown in all their variety, most in varying degrees of enthusiasm but one a confused looking elderly man smoking a pipe who would prefer to just finish his chess game, but he can't help glancing anxiously at the singers. Then everyone joins in the song which switches from a lighthearted folk-waltz to a near martial marching song. An extremely powerful scene built up from quiet origens to a terrific crescendo. I was also managing a theater when that came out and that scene had a truly mesmerizing effect on audiences.

I'll never forget how one night, when the place thankfully wasn't very crowded, a guy probably in his late sixties (this was 1972) started crying uncontrolably during that scene and practically ran from the theater, his wife rushing behind him. Next time I saw them -- it was really just a neighborhood place on Long Island -- I gave him two free passes. No doubt they'd been through a thing or two in their lives and that scene struck too close to home.

After having lived and worked in downtown Manhattan I can say those of the alternate lifestyles come in a number of varieties. I'm sure Caesar (an old camp quip about him went, "Husband to every woman, wife to every man", Alexander and Richard could very easily have been what they were and still have been the most rugged of men. My wife thinks I'm joking when I tell her this, but I've seen some of those guys who are apes and totally macho and probably swing both ways, as those three did.

But I agree with what you're saying, I'd prefer to think of them as having a more normal orientation. I'll bet the Vikings didn't tolerate any of that on their crowded long boats. On the other hand, they were never very numerous -- :confused:

[ May 12, 2003, 03:56 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]